COLD FEVER

COLD FEVER transports the viewer on a comic-spiritual journey from the busy fish markets of Tokyo to the remote and frozen landscapes of Iceland. Japanese yuppie Atsushi Hirata has just enjoyed a very successful year. Excitedly, he plans a trip to Hawaii, but his Grandfather encourages Hirata to travel to Iceland where he must perform the traditional Japanese burial rites for his parents who died in an accident there. The young upstart refuses, until, while practicing his putt in the living room, a stray golf ball strikes the TV controller and replays an old video from his parents. The living image of his dead family members on the television screen calls him to some duty left undone. Reluctantly, Hirata flies to the frigid island, a world away from Hawaii and his dream vacation.

Hirata’s journey induces us to think about the role of mourning and funeral rites in human life. He begins the trek with very little respect for the traditions of his people. The Icelandic landscape, with its outcroppings of rock and ice punctuated with hot pools and geysers that give testimony to subterranean volcanic activity, dominates the film and presents a metaphor for Hirata himself. Including some Buddhist, Christian and pagan elements, it is a story of a man’s search for spirituality.